Project Team

Andreas Freund, PhD

shamal.lalvani

s.tingley

arunkumar.sekar1

satish.manoharan

This team is looking for

About

In a world that is more and more connected, not only people but also soon hundreds of billions of devices, we are faced with very fundamental challenges and opportunities related to identity:
○ 1.5bn people do not have a legal identity and, therefore, are shut out from meaningful economic activity and legal protection
○ Daily cyberhacks of personal information costs tens of billions posing global threats to everyone
○ Daily cyberhacks of devices (cars, drones, power plants, networks etc.) can endanger the lives of millions of people
○ Regulations are rapidly increasing globally to protect an individuals’ privacy as pressure mounts to curtail rampant advertising and protect the individuals private data from abuse such as identity theft
○ People demand seamless customer experiences which require secure, trusted and real-time authentication of individuals and things
The security, privacy and immutability of transactions, code and data on a Blockchain together with biometric data make it possible for the first time in human history to give every human being (and thing) on this planet a (legal) digital identity that can never be lost and can never be taken away in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, and, therefore, include 1.5Bn people in meaningful economic activity and provide protection through legal frameworks.
How can a (legal) digital identity be achieved? Blockchain Smart Contracts, the immutability of transactions and data on the Blockchain itself and biometric data together allows one to establish a unique (legal) identity through an identity attestation process that can be underwritten by for example globally recognized institutions such as the United Nations or a consortium of large corporations. Benefits for these corporations and their customers to participate in such a consortium are:
○ Data privacy through the cryptographic capabilities of a Blockchain
○ Better cyber security through the safe and secure transaction mechanism of a Blockchain
○ Identity validation without having to reveal PII from anywhere at any time through virtually any device by individuals or organizations that require proof of (legal) identity
In addition to a (legal) core identity, one can now also create and link additional identity dimensions to a core identity which represent different aspects of one’s life such as social, financial, commercial etc. For example, banks could run a Know-Your-Customer (KYC) check, as they are required by financial regulation almost everywhere on a new client and then publish that result on the Blockchain for anyone to see and link it to the core identity of the requesting individual. That means that anyone or any organization in the world can check that the KYC process for a particular (legal) identity was successfully completed by a known and trusted 3rd party agent but personal identifiable information (PII) is not made public. This can greatly reduce the dissemination of PII data, significantly improving privacy and reducing the risk of identity theft at a global scale. This trust process can be expanded further such as to national security clearances, to attestation of one’s property, the authenticity of one's own devices or the authority of one's own devices to connect to one another.
Our unique, highly scalable solution not only addresses the technology challenges but allows to overcome trust deficits hindering large scale adoption.
Team: Dr. Andreas Freund, Shamal Lalvani, Satish Manoharan, Arunkumar Sekar, Spencer Tingley